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16 responses so far ↓

• 1 Drew // Sep 17, 2008 at 12:37 am

  Bad example I think. These people got to Heaven faster than the rest!

  No, I think if prayer worked, you would see many more people like Benny Hinn, only actually, you know, effective…

  Oh, and lots more religious types would win the lottery…

• 2 Drew // Sep 17, 2008 at 12:47 am

  Actually, I think prayer does work, in a couple different ways.

  Negatively, I think prayer is a good way for people to feel good about doing nothing. “I’ll continue to vote for war mongers and pray the troops are safe”

  Positively, I think prayer lends some comfort or sense of control over things beyond our control, such as when a loved one lies dieing of disease or injuries.

  Prayer isn’t just Hail Marys or Allah Ahkbars, it is also quiet meditation where you hope god beams good thoughts into your head. Well while you are waiting hopefully you figure things out on your own.

  I do point out when prayer is worthless, or used as a crutch. When my dad died of cancer back in 2000, alot of religious people told me they would pray for me. I said thanks, but no thanks. If you want to do something, send a donation in my dad’s memory to the American Cancer Society, or something similar. Alot of them did, as I figured because they are really nice people. Some are not, and were a bit upset with me because I wouldn’t allow them to feel like they were doing something when they were not.

  You don’t want to do anything fine, but don’t ask me to help you comfort your conscience…

• 3 Thranil // Sep 17, 2008 at 12:54 am

  I couldn’t have said that better, Drew.

• 4 Tim Stroud // Sep 17, 2008 at 12:58 am

  Of course prayer works!

  If it didn’t I’d still be a virgin.

• 5 Drew // Sep 17, 2008 at 7:19 am

  @ Tim, ROFLMAO

• 6 Jenny // Sep 17, 2008 at 10:58 am

  I pray just to keep open the communication between me and my God (who isn’t the one you don’t believe in. I don’t believe in that priestly-pay-me-in-cash-or-I-won’t-dole-out-salvation-to-you god either).
  If you expect prayer to be answered because you demanded it so, you’ll be disappointed. People who pray like that are putting themselves in the drivers seat and it isn’t that way. Sometimes you pray and get what you pray for. Sometimes you pray and get the opposite of what you pray for. I believe God HEARS your prayers, and sometimes what you are praying for isn’t in His divine plan, so you don’t receive it. I try to maintain that a lot of His plan and just what He’s about is over my head and greater than anything I can understand.
  I do believe His love is greater than anything I can comprehend. If “it” really was all about me and my little speck of a life, that wouldn’t be much of anything worth studying or worshipping.
  Praying isn’t the same thing as demanding. At least not for me.

• 7 Drew // Sep 17, 2008 at 8:30 pm

  Jenny:

  An interesting post, just a few thoughts…

  I pray just to keep open the communication between me and my God (who isn’t the one you don’t believe in. I don’t believe in that priestly-pay-me-in-cash-or-I-won’t-dole-out-salvation-to-you god either).

  Um, athiests pretty much do not believe in any gods. Certainly no personal gods. Always an outside chance that a god or god like creature exists somewhere in the Universe, but not the ones humankind has written about to date.

  Sometimes you pray and get what you pray for. Sometimes you pray and get the opposite of what you pray for. I believe God HEARS your prayers, and sometimes what you are praying for isn’t in His divine plan, so you don’t receive it.

  Here it looks to me like you are saying two different things.
  1- Prayer does not work. Prayer in this case means special pleading to a divine object in order to change your fate. You seem to be saying that your god only answers prayer that fits the Plan. In other words it would have happened anyway, whether you prayed or not.
  2- Nobody has freewill. God has everything planned out from the start, and not even prayer can change it. This means there can be no such thing as sin. It also means your god makes people do bad things to each other. To what end?

  I try to maintain that a lot of His plan and just what He’s about is over my head and greater than anything I can understand.
  I am sorry to see you write that. I am sure if you gave it some effort, you could easily understand how the Universe works. On a grand scale it is just comlicated enough to be beautiful and elegant, but simple enough to follow.

  I do believe His love is greater than anything I can comprehend.

  I am not really sure you do. According to what you posted you believe God has a plan for us all. That means every bit of pain and suffering in this world is part of that plan, directed by your god. Certainly that is not love? There is just too much…horrible things happening. No, I do not believe your god loves us at all. It kind of appears like it is a sadistic toddler pulling the wings off a butterfly and throwing temper tantrums whenever he doesn’t get his way.

  If “it” really was all about me and my little speck of a life, that wouldn’t be much of anything worth studying or worshipping.
  Worship, no. But I am sure your loved ones would disagree that you aren’t worth much of anything. At least I would hope so.

  Praying isn’t the same thing as demanding. At least not for me.
  Agreed. In most cases it is more akin to begging.

• 8 Steve // Sep 19, 2008 at 7:02 am

  This does raise the interesting question of what is prayer supposed to be, and how is it supposed to work.

  I think Sir Galton set up the experiment/research poorly. He defined prayer as God giving us what we ask Him for. He assumed this was in a vacuum, with no other factors involved other than request and outcome. An example might be proposing that aspirin is for relieving headaches, and then declaring aspirin a failure because is didn’t always work. Who was it tried on? Migraine sufferers? Brain tumor patients? In both of these cases, other factors would render the expected outcome negative. Not because aspirin doesn’t work, or is false, but because other things were going on.

  Maybe this is moving too far back conceptually, but the question that keeps on coming to mind for me is this: By claiming that prayer doesn’t work (and all the attendant conclusions drawn from that), you’re claiming that the outcome is wrong. Bad, even. Such as, it’s bad/wrong or worse to pray for a child’s healing, and the child still dies.

  If there is no transcendence, no thing out there to appeal to other that this material world, how can you claim that it’s wrong, or bad? It’s just meat on a stick, to be kind of coarse. And, if we’re all just meat on a stick, why feel bad?

  To me, belief in a transcendent “other” that has set a standard – so that we can all appeal to that standard (and call something wrong or bad) – stands up to logic batter than the idea of right and wrong springing up ex-nihilo.

  But, I want to hear the other side. I may be wrong. How do you get to right and wrong in the absence of a standard outside of this material world?

• 9 Jenny Moore // Sep 20, 2008 at 1:56 am

  Drew – Hi – I appreciate your thoughts, even though they differ from mine! Gosh you took the time to address so much of my comment… thanks!
  I know your mind is made up in your beliefs, and so is mine, and that’s fine for us both. But for sport, I’ll see if I can explain it…

  Jenny:

  An interesting post, just a few thoughts…

  I pray just to keep open the communication between me and my God (who isn’t the one you don’t believe in. I don’t believe in that priestly-pay-me-in-cash-or-I-won’t-dole-out-salvation-to-you god either).

  Um, athiests pretty much do not believe in any gods. Certainly no personal gods. Always an outside chance that a god or god like creature exists somewhere in the Universe, but not the ones humankind has written about to date.

  I know that Atheists don’t believe in any gods. [Re-read and you'll see I said "don't believe in"]. Your faith is in No Gods. That is a belief system in nothingness. That’s still having faith in something, even though that something is “nothing”. Your telling me that “there is no God” cannot be proven or disproven. It’s just my opinion v. your opinion; my faith v. your faith. Neither of us will ever “win” the argument.
  I do believe in Jesus (and Bill knows this and still likes me!) We used to do triathlon together, even though I live about a thousand miles away in MN. Much of what made him lose his religion was caused by what he saw reporting firsthand on the actions of evil people, like rapist priests, and the cardinals and archbishops that villified the victims, and STILL won’t condemn the criminals. That and scheming televangelists who buy up late-night air time demanding money or you’ll be doomed, and then deplete teeny savings accounts from the people who can afford to lose it the least. Those guys are not Godly people. They are predators of varying dispicable sorts who dress up as Christians, and give the real Christians a bad rep. Granted, there are bad Atheists, too – I know that. But anyway…

  Sometimes you pray and get what you pray for. Sometimes you pray and get the opposite of what you pray for. I believe God HEARS your prayers, and sometimes what you are praying for isn’t in His divine plan, so you don’t receive it.

  Here it looks to me like you are saying two different things.
  1- Prayer does not work. Prayer in this case means special pleading to a divine object in order to change your fate. You seem to be saying that your god only answers prayer that fits the Plan. In other words it would have happened anyway, whether you prayed or not.
  2- Nobody has freewill. God has everything planned out from the start, and not even prayer can change it. This means there can be no such thing as sin. It also means your god makes people do bad things to each other. To what end?

  I still enjoy prayer – when it “works” or not. I feel a peace and comfort believing that somewhere in another dimension I have a creator who loves me. I don’t believe I can dictate to God what to do for me, but I do like to ask for guidance, wisdom, courage, etc. when I struggle with stuff.
  Regarding sin – I believe sin is the stuff in the Bible that He told us not to do, and there is plenty of it going on, are you kidding?? Sum it up in the 10 Commandments if you will. As a loving God, he was just telling us to do these things and we’ll live much happier, healthier lives if we do. Go through and read them…and if you think about it, if everybody obeyed these things all the time (which will never happen because it’s human nature to screw up, even when we try), then what would anybody have to fight over? It’d be pretty peaceful around here.

  I try to maintain that a lot of His plan and just what He’s about is over my head and greater than anything I can understand.
  I am sorry to see you write that. I am sure if you gave it some effort, you could easily understand how the Universe works. On a grand scale it is just comlicated enough to be beautiful and elegant, but simple enough to follow.

  What? I can understand the universe and how it works? No one in humankind – even the super smart ones like Stephen Hawking will profess to understanding how the universe works. But you’ve moved up in my personal friendship ranking for thinking I was that smart!

  I do believe His love is greater than anything I can comprehend.

  I am not really sure you do. According to what you posted you believe God has a plan for us all. That means every bit of pain and suffering in this world is part of that plan, directed by your god. Certainly that is not love? There is just too much…horrible things happening. No, I do not believe your god loves us at all. It kind of appears like it is a sadistic toddler pulling the wings off a butterfly and throwing temper tantrums whenever he doesn’t get his way.

  I’m not sure who is playing the role of the toddler in your example. Love isn’t summed up in Always Getting Your Way. But, I think His love is great! Of course bad things happen. But when bad things happen to me I am comforted by His love. And I may not understand it in this life, but I believe I will understand in the next one. Here’s an example – back in 1986 I was pretty much left at the alter – invites were out and everything. I prayed and prayed that it wasn’t so, but it was. Now, 22 years later, I am married to a great guy, have healthy kids and a fun life with lots of great friends. And I am still friends with my old BF, and looking back, I have to say I am THRILLED that my prayers weren’t answered the way I wanted them to be at the time. Ken would have driven me nuts! [sorry Ken]. Another example which I as of yet can’t understand, is the death of my daughter’s friend (age 6) a few months ago. You may have heard about it, her name was Abby Taylor and she had her intestines sucked out by a pool drain last summer at the Minneapolis Country Club. She received several donated organs, but died 8 months later. Of course I cannot see the reasons for such tragedy. But I *have faith* that someday I will understand.

  If “it” really was all about me and my little speck of a life, that wouldn’t be much of anything worth studying or worshipping.
  Worship, no. But I am sure your loved ones would disagree that you aren’t worth much of anything. At least I would hope so.

  Oooooh yeah — you are right my loved ones disagreeing…. I am VERY popular. (Back me up please, Bill!) But I think “love” is so much greater than what we know of it here on this earth. I would probably go so far as to say God IS love.

  Praying isn’t the same thing as demanding. At least not for me.
  Agreed. In most cases it is more akin to begging.
  I also agree. Some people use prayer to beg for stuff. Not sure how that works for them. But like I said before, I use it to ground me to what/whom I believe is my creator. I use it to be thankful for the *insane* number of blessings I have which I did nothing to earn.

  In the end, Drew, I think that different things bring different people comfort. I do believe in Heaven, and God, and eternity there. And so I will likely haunt Bill’s site with my perspective because I love him (and his sweet wife and awesome sons!) and care about [what I believe is] his beautiful soul.

  Jenny

• 10 Drew // Sep 23, 2008 at 4:17 am

  Hi Jenny,

  Thanks for the response. I would like to address several points in your post, but as it is getting a little out of hand, I will take them one at a time.

  I’ll start with the faith part, I guess.

  You said:
  I know that Atheists don’t believe in any gods. [Re-read and you’ll see I said “don’t believe in”]. Your faith is in No Gods. That is a belief system in nothingness. That’s still having faith in something, even though that something is “nothing”. Your telling me that “there is no God” cannot be proven or disproven. It’s just my opinion v. your opinion; my faith v. your faith. Neither of us will ever “win” the argument.

  You seem to subscribe to the idea that athiests are just as dogmatic, or faithful, as believers are. I disagree. Sure there are some atheists who are so set in their belief that there can be no gods that they are, in fact, believers of a different kind. However, most athiests I have met, conversed with, or read, are not of that type.

  Let’s start with a dictionary definition of faith, so we are on the same page.

  From Merriam-Webster:</A

  1 a: allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1): fidelity to one’s promises (2): sincerity of intentions
  2 a (1): belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust
  3: something that is believed especially with strong conviction ; especially : a system of religious beliefs

  I suppose you could say I am covered as one of the faithful under #3, however you could say the same thing about my opinion that mint chocolate chip ice cream is the best flavor, ever. (the green kind, thank you.)

  No, I think regarding a belief in a religion, or not in one, covers #2, especially “firm belief in something for which there is no proof”.

  If you re-read my original post, it states:
  Certainly no personal gods. Always an outside chance that a god or god like creature exists somewhere in the Universe, but not the ones humankind has written about to date.

  This to me is pretty obviously stating that, I agree there may be a god or godlike creature somewhere out there in the Universe, I just do not believe in the personal Gods that people worship and have written stories about.

  If you take the Christian religion, for example, I believe that neither the Old or New Testaments are accurate protrayals of anything. There is actually evidence to refute alot of the stories within, especially those that make claims about the Natural World we all live in.

  So to say that my belief that the Bible is nothing more than a fictional work written by ancient people is an act of faith, is, I think, by defintion, incorrect.

  Let’s take one more easy one:

  What? I can understand the universe and how it works? No one in humankind – even the super smart ones like Stephen Hawking will profess to understanding how the universe works. But you’ve moved up in my personal friendship ranking for thinking I was that smart!

  lol, I wasn’t trying to say that we know everything there is to know. We do know quite a lot, however. Including potential mechanisms for Abiogenesis, or the forming of the first life forms on Earth. Some interesting easy reading on some of these experiments can be found on
  Wikipedia’s Miller-Urey site.</A

  This is great science, and it has many implications. The first, and most relevant to religion/non religion debate is that a divine force is not needed to allow for the formation of life.
  Another is that, given the Earth and our solar system formed the same way many other star systems form, the liklihood that some other planet out there is home to life is much greater! And while I am sure I will never see it in my lifetime, (it would simply take too long to travel to a potentially viable system) that is still pretty cool.

  BTW pretty much the rest of the Universe is known to the point where we no longer need a god to explain anything.

  At one point people needed gods to explain how babies were created, why it rained, why it got dark at night, what the Moon was, how to find food, etc.

  We no longer need those explanations, as science has answered many of those questions to the point that we understand these are natural processes, and no violation of natural law is required.

  This leaves only morality as a place for religion (and perhaps why the World over religion is in a steady decline relating to even a few hundred years ago). And when you consider the morality of the day back when much of the Bible was written, well, I think it is time for a new set of principles. And I think you will agree when you consider:

  Slavery is not a good moral practice, but even 150 years ago, it was. Times change. People change. The Bible can’t. It allows for slavery, it is no longer relevent to our time.

  We know that mentruating women are not possesed by demons( even if my fiancee somtimes seems like it:-), nor are they “unlcean.”
  I am not sure what “unclean” refers to, I can only guess that with modern indoor plumbing we are all much more clean than we ever were, regardless of gender or fertility cycles.

  We now know (or should know) that homosexuality is not evil, or contagious, or a reason to stone someone to death.

  Neither is it a capital offense for women to leave the house without the menfolk.

  Jeepers, I guess I am off on a bit of a tangent here, and I am no longer on point about people like you and me understanding the Universe.

  Or maybe I am not. Perhaps these are all excellent points for illustrating that whether we question the world around us, or how we should behave towards each other, that the Bible and other religious texts are no longer sufficient to teach us anything.

  Except what some people thought back when they were written. And I hope most of us are past those antiquated beliefs by now.

  After all some cultures believed that only a sacrificed virgin would cause the sun to rise in the morning. Thank Thor we no longer believe that!

• 11 Drew // Sep 23, 2008 at 4:23 am

  Whoops, I guess my elementary HTML skills got away from me with that post. Sorry for all the underlining. Those links should have only been a couple words long!

• 12 Drew // Sep 23, 2008 at 4:24 am

  Hmm, something in there triggered moderation. Maybe Bill, if you have time, you can fix whatever HTML screwed up and keep those links manageable?

• 13 Jenny // Sep 25, 2008 at 6:46 am

  Drew – sheesh! This is getting long, but I love this philosophical badminton. I hope I’m burning calories.
  Bill – I assume you’ll let us know if it’s ok we do this on your site? If not, Drew, my email is ironjenny@mac.com.

  OK – I will start from the top. And I can’t copy/paste your points because being underlined, my little arrow thinks it’s all one hyperlink. So I’ll paraphrase yours and then answer, ok? Also, I will preface all this with “I still hold that none of this can be proven, it is just my faith.”

  1). I’d say your faith is covered under 2b1, and 3 first clause.

  2). That’s ok that you don’t believe in personal gods that people have written about. The personal gods that were written about in the original books of the Bible have been manipulated into varying things. I don’t believe in some of those portrayals either, only because people keep changing what the word of “the god I believe in” is, to suit their needs. And maybe I do that myself, to a degree. But you only have to look as far as the rapist priests (and the bishops, cardinals and popes who still refuse to criminalize them) to cast b.s. on the whole system. Especially since the only Christians you hear about are the crazy ones. If you have ten minutes, watch this video all the way to the end. This is what I think being a Christian really about. It is a woman reciting a poem that is about the thousand questions she has regarding God. It doesn’t end how you think it will.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVN0PTnro_0

  3). Regarding the Natural World we live in:
  I believe it was all created by God. Once created things evolved and continue to evolve to this day and will evolve some more next week and the week after that. I spent a week and a half in the Galapagos Islands (where Charles Darwin wrote his theory on evolution) and I am completely convinced that animals and plants have changed since God created them. I’ve also spent some time in the mountains and you don’t have to convince me that earthquakes and volcanic eruptions have not changed our landscape over the last few millions of years. Accepting that the Natural World HAS evolved does not exclude me from my faith in God. That I think, is a common misconception – that life on the planet as we know it today, is the way Jews and Christians believe God created it. No – I think it has changed a lot.

  4). I agree that we do know a lot about astronomy. I also think that “a lot” is a speck of what there IS to know about the universe. I’m waiting for someone to explain to me where the molecules and gasses whose bang resulted in our planet, came from. I *have faith* that that was created by God. If a divine force is not needed to allow for the creation of life, then what is and where did the parts come from? It is ALL theory. Both God and Big Bang are both theory. Neither can be proven.

  5). I still need a god to explain it to me.

  6). You made is sound like you know there is an end or a containment to the universe, so we don’t need to know much more about it. So where is that end? To my knowledge, no one knows. And if there is an end, what is beyond that end?

  7). Of course I agree that slavery is wrong (so does the Bible. The reason is has slaves in it is because when it was written people DID keep slaves and the lessons that were to be gleaned from it just included them in the cast of characters, I think).

  I have to take Bobby to soccer – I’ll finish later tonight…

• 14 Jenny // Sep 25, 2008 at 8:31 am

  8). I didn’t know that menstruating women were possessed of demons. Where is that? About them being unclean, I’m not sure what that is about either. Maybe back when the books were written women could get deadly infections into their bloodstreams if they had sex during their periods? – I have no idea! But I think God is a loving God, and if He were protecting us in some way at a time when sanitation / plumbing was unheard of that maybe that is where that came from? I don’t know. Where is that anyway?

  9). Don’t know anything about women leaving the house without menfolk being a capital offense either – where is that?

  10). I think we are past those antiquated beliefs, too.

  I’d love to hear what you think of the video… it’s not anything remotely like the fire and brimstone you’re-doomed-and-unworthy church that I was dragged to growing up!

  Jenny

• 15 Jenny // Sep 25, 2008 at 8:48 am

  Oh – I skipped one that is important to me.

  11). Homosexuality. It’s mentioned about five times in the bible. Adultery is mentioned about 5,000 times. Yet so many “Christians” only focus on homosexuality (and that is what gets on the news a lot), meanwhile these In-a-state-of-grace Christians cheat on their wives or husbands, get it absolved in the confessional every week and go about more of the same the next week.
  My belief is that God made all of us. He isn’t partial. We all have SOMETHING we struggle with. Sometimes that is something we bring on ourselves (I struggle with food believe it or not, even though I am an athlete — I still would rather sit on the couch with a box of crackers and watch t.v. all day). Other things we struggle with we just are born with. I.e., Genes that say, “I am attracted to men even though my body parts say I am to be attracted to women”, or infertility (have parts – they don’t work the way they were designed), or I have a club foot…. – whatever! Gay people are just people. None of us is perfect. None of us is more imperfect than any other. If it’s “wrong”, then blame God. God made them that way. God made me this way. And God loves them just like he loves the hetero folks.
  The Bible says God is impartial. It’s the PEOPLE who interpret different “sins” in varying ways to make THEIR points.
  I don’t have an answer for WHY God did/ does what He does, but that is what I (and the Christians I hang out with) believe.

• 16 Ms. Turner // Oct 8, 2008 at 11:46 pm

  To Mr. Lobdell
  Before you completely give up on Christ I suggest that you visit a man that can be found in
  Alpine, Al. The reason I say this is due to if it was not for prayer he would have died over twenty years ago, along with several other members of his church. If for no other reason just listen to what he has to say. He is my pastor and teaches and preaches that prayer is the only way he made it. For curiosity sake you should contact him or me @ turner.dani@yahoo.com.

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